


"Yes Please"

by Luci_Cunt



Series: Removing Thorns [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: DAMNIT!, He's working through his issues and growing!!!, andrew is healing, or else!!!, post-cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 16:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18996778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luci_Cunt/pseuds/Luci_Cunt
Summary: Andrew realizes suddenly that his biggest trigger isn't so big anymore





	"Yes Please"

**Author's Note:**

> (WARNING: mentions of Andrew's past, nothing too explicit though)
> 
> So this is a series now XD because I love the Foxes and want them healed and happy and alkdsjfa;ldfj so yeah, we got a Part II of what I'm calling the "Removing Thorns" series because I'm edgy.
> 
> If you haven't read Part I it's about Kevin getting sober. 
> 
> I think the next one will either be about Neil or Aaron, haven't decided yet. Also I haven't decided whether this is only going to be a series for the Monsters or for ALL of the Foxes. Knowing me, it'll probably turn into ALL XD

Every time Andrew hears the word ‘please’ it rips him open and flips him inside out. 

It throws him back into the sweaty palmed, numb limbed, aching helplessness of straining every muscle in your body until it feels like it’ll snap and still nothing. Of jabs of correction for making too much noise and the hole torn inside of him as he lays in a bed that will never be his and soaks in his own blood and fear sweat and realizes nothing will ever get better. 

There aren’t many things that make Andrew loose control, but that feeling of aching helplessness has the uncanny ability of prying open his skull with a screwdriver and ripping every bit of sense out of his brain and leaving nothing but raw, primal panic.

Bee has told him that trigger words are common among abuse victims. She said it bluntly too, just like that, because she knew that if she didn’t–if she tried to use some soft, flowery terms to bounce around what she was actually trying to say–Andrew wouldn’t have responded. 

Sometimes therapy feels like it’s carving Andrew out on the inside, and he knows it should feel good–peeling away at the layer and layer of festering rot, but it doesn’t at first. It hurts worse, every word from Bee’s mouth makes him want to tear her hair out and shove her stupid glass figurines down her throat. 

He doesn’t. 

He just clutches his cocoa mug tighter and lets his fingers go numb from circulation loss. It helps him zone out, to slip away with the loss of feeling into a blank void where none of his thought can’t reach him. 

Bee tells him exposure therapy has worked for some people, she offers it as an option. He accepts. They don’t start with ‘please.’

Exposure therapy just makes Andrew feel raw and exhausted. He can’t see how any of it is helping but he’s lived through worse and somehow he trusts Bee to not put him through this without knowing it will end. 

They start with the couch. Andrew remembers his first day of therapy, he’d walked in and then walked back out because Bee’s patient couch was placed in the center of the room, leaving his back to the door and even the idea of that made his skin crawl through the court mandated drugs. 

The only thing they made him do was laugh at the sheer panic he felt at having to sit with his back not against a wall. 

The next time, Bee had asked him what was making him uncomfortable, Andrew had just laughed again and asked her to be more specific. Nothing about his life was comfortable. She guessed what it was though, and ever since the couch had been shoved back against the wall, so that Bee’s back was to the door and Andrew could watch it. 

They moved the couch back, and Bee made sure to lock the door. They went through their regular session even though Andrew couldn’t figure out how to focus on anything except listening for the sound of the door opening. 

It got easier. Eventually he learned to trust himself–that he would hear if the door was opening even if he wasn’t paying attention. 

After that showed good signs Bee asked him about ‘please.’

Hearing her say it like that didn’t affect him like it usually did, he guessed that was just because it was being used as a regular noun, it didn’t have any meaning or expectations. Andrew had noticed that, ‘please’ wasn’t exactly the issue, because he heard it sometimes in public when people casually added it to the ends of their sentences or in the middle. 

_Could you please? Would you please? Please and thank you Johnny._

It was when the word was mixed with desperation–even fake. Like when Nicky used to whine the word to try and get Aaron to do something and it would set Andrews skin on fire and his spine crawling. Would dredge up phantom hands that clenched tighter and tighter around his wrists and waist and neck until he reached to brush them away–then they’d disappear but the feeling would still be there. 

Andrew said no, and Bee didn’t bring it up again. She knew if he changed his mind he would tell her.

It didn’t come up as real problem until years down the line. After college and after a new apartment with Neil and shifting and moving and settling in to a real life. Into a bed he could call his own and a situation he didn’t mind not ending. Easy mornings waking up with the sun and a stupid junkie stinking up the room after his run at the ass crack of dawn. Of sweet smelling shampoo and fresh coffee and morning breath reeking smiles.

A comforting kind of casual that Andrew took almost too long to get used to. Like easing yourself into a hot bath, or jumping off a cliff and crossing your fingers that the swooping feeling will end when you land in the water below.

Neil kept in touch with the old Foxes more than Andrew did, but he knew enough. He knew who’d been married and vaguely what everyone’s new professions were–that was mostly Neil’s fault though. 

So it wasn’t that much of a surprise when the next time Kevin stopped by for a visit he had a six year old latched onto his leg. 

Andrew didn’t like kids much but he found he didn’t mind her, she was quiet and thoughtful–unlike her father–and chose her words carefully, politely, but still with enough spite and temper and hints of perfectionism that it wasn’t hard to spot the similarities. 

They came over regularly, to give Muldani a break most likely, and Andrew couldn’t bring himself to care.

It happened first in the kitchen, because that’s where Andrew was hiding while he debated sneaking out for a smoke while Kevin and Neil argued over the Trojan’s new defensive line. Andrew hadn’t paid enough attention to know what about the defensive line was so argument provoking but he was certain he didn’t care.

Amalia wandered into the kitchen with him. 

“Juice?” she asked, and Andrew opened the fridge and gestured to the bottom shelf that they kept stalked mostly for her. She picked out the one she wanted–apple–and Andrew let her carry the jug over and heft it up onto the kitchen chair with her tiny hands. She wasn’t quite tall enough to set it on the table so she had to climb on the chair and lift the jug up that way. Andrew opened the cabinet. 

“Big cup?” he asked, already reaching for it.

“Yes please,” she said. 

Andrew froze. His hand half wrapped around a glass and the other holding the cabinet open. 

“Uncle Andrew?” Amalia asked after he hadn’t moved for too long. Andrew clenched his teeth and as he waited for the panic to set in. For the her tiny voice to start echoing the word through his head and cut the air off in his lungs. 

But it didn’t come. 

Half in shock Andrew finished pulling the glass out of the cabinet and set it down next to Amalia on the table. He spent the rest of the day waiting for it to hit him, waiting for the word to catch up with him. 

He got what he was waiting for when he went to sleep, and he woke up in a cold sweat with someone touching him and–

Then Neil flicked on the lights, put space between them, and handed Andrew a glass of water. 

“Bad?” Neil asked, sleep still tugging at his words despite his focus. Andrew just shook his head and took a gulp of water before Neil took it again–watching him carefully–and turned off the light. Andrew laid awake for a moment, waiting for hands to grab him and alcohol stained breath to warm his ear. When nothing happened besides the sound of Neil’s breath evening out as he fell back asleep, Andrew let himself relax and slept through the rest of the night. 

The next time Amalia said please, Andrew expected it to hit him again. Expected the last time to have been a fluke, especially since this time she’d been begging Kevin to let her have a kitty like Uncle Neil and Andrew had. 

It still didn’t. 

It happened again and again and again and suddenly Andrew realized the word didn’t do anything to him anymore except make him work himself up into an anxiety attack while he waited for one to hit him. 

_Please,_ was suddenly just another word. 

The next time Amalia said " _tell dad I'm right, please Uncle Andrew_ " and he didn’t even bat an eye, Neil beamed and Andrew allowed himself a shred of pride.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!! Kudos and comments are SO appreciated, I hope people enjoy this


End file.
